All of us have been poorly judged at sometime or the other in our lives. We've never liked it, I am sure. Yet, we dare to sit in judgement where others are concerned. This kind of comes easy to many of us.
A bunch of us met online early this week. We had a sort of condolence meeting for a friend and a mentor who passed on last week. She was touching 90 and had lived her life to the full. She had no regrets in life, she was someone whom all the 7 of us admired and excepted into our middle aged group without any reservation. Her fierce independence and her never give up attitude were a couple of things among others that inspired me to no end.
Sara was her name, but we never called her that, we called her Aunt it was our way of expressing our love and respect for her and she willingly played the part. Her hands were crooked with arthritis but she never stopped painting, crafting or teaching others. She was a compassionate and loving person. All of us spoke about how she influenced and impacted our lives.
One of my friends prayed at the start of our little meeting and I ended it with a prayer of thanksgiving for her life.We knew that Aunt Sara would have never liked us to mourn her death. Just after everyone had said Amen to the prayer our conversation turned to another friend who didn't make it to this meeting.
It was then one of my friends shushed us all and made an announcement. She said that Lara (let's just call her that) has just delivered a baby girl. There was a moment of absolute silence, no one spoke or even moved a muscle. This shocked silence said a lot about how we took this news. Lara is well over 50, she is a mother to two grown up children. You wonder what this has to do with causality, I will come to it, I ask you to be patient with me.
Then followed the laughs. Each one expressed their point of view in very interesting and humorous ways. We all laughed a bit, but then the ladies got a bit crude, I was getting uncomfortable. I kept my peace and didn't say a word or even smile. So the six of them started prodding me a bit. I can be very blunt at times (like most of the time LOL) I asked them this question - "Who are you to judge?" and as an after thought I added, "Do you think Aunt Sara would have approved of our conversation?"
Some defensive arguments followed, but I didn't add to the conversation. I politely waited for sometime and excused myself from the meeting. This question who are you to judge kept coming back to my mind over and over again. A number of other questions followed. My thoughts took a different turn.
I was thinking from Lara's point of view. If Lara and her husband had no problem whatsoever about welcoming this child into their world and taking responsibility for her how was this a problem to the rest of the 'friendly world'?
If this couple felt that they had enough love in their hearts to share with one more child why does the world call the child a mistake?
If Lara and her husband could plan and ensure that the child was well accepted by their other two children what was the problem of the society to accept the baby. This child wasn't Illegitimate or something right?
If we as a society would not lift a finger to help them in anyway who gave us the permission to laugh at their mistakes or choices whatever they were. What if this was a choice not a mistake? I am sure they made a choice to keep the child when they became aware of the pregnancy.
Mistake or not they were ready to face the consequences and did not run away from it, so why do we have to make this difficult for them. There were so many questions in my mind that I could have asked my friends but kept quiet for the sake of keeping the peace.
I just wondered if Lara got to hear about how her so called close friends judged her how would she feel. Did we care a hoot about the feelings of others before we made a joke about them. Would any of us like to be treated this way when we made a mistake?
The scripture says in
I enjoyed sharing this experience for the proof of brain word of the week contest. Thanks for reading and responding
Matt. 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
If people knew what this actually means they would leave all judgement to God. It is his work to judge.
It is hard to keep away from judging because this is how our brain processes information. It takes apart every piece of information it receives, analyzes it with a cold objectivity and settles on whether the information was good or bad, virtuous or not virtuous, whether it was practical or not and such. Sadly, none of this maybe very humane in nature.
So, the next time before you jump to a conclusion consider it carefully from a humane point of view. Remember the causality of your actions. Try to think of the ripple effect this action would have in the world of the other person. Often times when sh-t hits the ceiling it falls back on us, so we've got to be careful about what we spread around or even throw upwards.
Remember what Issac Newton said, "To every action there is always an equal and opposite or contrary, reaction." The law of causality is always at work. Even things said in closed rooms (or Google meets) could come back to haunt you and spoil all the work you put in to building the relationship over the years.
Every word we put out there, every emotion we express does have an impact on those around us. While it is good to express ourselves it would be even better to express ourselves with consideration for others. Remember the law of causality.
I enjoyed sharing this experience for the proof of brain word of the week contest. Thanks for reading and responding